Melia's review

A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories
by Flannery O'Connor

[close]

blog this review

Copy/paste the text below into your blog.

<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48464.A_Good_Man_Is_Hard_to_Find_and_Other_Stories?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170355800m/48464.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48464.A_Good_Man_Is_Hard_to_Find_and_Other_Stories?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/22694.Flannery_O_Connor">Flannery O'Connor</a><br/><br/>
  <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9583347?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
  rating: 5 of 5 stars<br/>You will not have a fully formed conception of the South until you have read a story written by Flannery O’Connor. Her style is wry, twisted, dark and as black as anything you will ever read. I have read this story numerous times since I learned of its existence, the first time being upon entering my freshman year of high school. I feel I lack the credibility required to really explain the deeper meaning of this story to any extent, however I could also argue that anyone but the author herself lacks the ability to do that either.
<br/>	In short, the story revolves around a family living in Tennessee that is en route to Florida. The central character that the story focuses on is the grandmother, who is displeased with where they are going on vacation. The family stops for lunch at a diner where they hear about The Misfit, a criminal who is on the run. They leave the restaurant and drive off when the grandmother remembers an old plantation she had visited in her younger days and persuades the family to take a pit stop and visit the old house. Turning up a dirt road, the grandmother realizes that the plantation she is thinking of is in a completely different state, however before she has time to relay this to the family their car is overturned in a ditch. And whom do they run into but The Misfit…
<br/> 	What haunted my most about this story was the image of the grandmother at the end immediately after the Misfit shoots her. With the sparsest of setting details, the picture of two of The Misfit’s cronies “looking down at the grandmother, who half sat and half lay n a puddle of blood with her legs crossed under her like a child’s and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky,” is so vivid you’re unable to shake it. What I like most about this story is that there is so much going on beneath the surface of every word. This is piece is on the briefer side of short stories, but it contains so much more meat than many novels ten times its length. This is a story I love to come back to and hope others who read it feel the same way.
<br/>
  <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/384009?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Melia's review
rating:

recommended for: almighty himself
status: Read in October, 2002 — I have a copy to sell/swap

You will not have a fully formed conception of the South until you have read a story written by Flannery O’Connor. Her style is wry, twisted, dark and as black as anything you will ever read. I have read this story numerous times since I learned of its existence, the first time being upon entering my freshman year of high school. I feel I lack the credibility required to really explain the deeper meaning of this story to any extent, however I could also argue that anyone but the author herself lacks the ability to do that either.
In short, the story revolves around a family living in Tennessee that is en route to Florida. The central character that the story focuses on is the grandmother, who is displeased with where they are going on vacation. The family stops for lunch at a diner where they hear about The Misfit, a criminal who is on the run. They leave the restaurant and drive off when the grandmother remembers an old plantation she had visited in her younger days and persuades ...more You will not have a fully formed conception of the South until you have read a story written by Flannery O’Connor. Her style is wry, twisted, dark and as black as anything you will ever read. I have read this story numerous times since I learned of its existence, the first time being upon entering my freshman year of high school. I feel I lack the credibility required to really explain the deeper meaning of this story to any extent, however I could also argue that anyone but the author herself lacks the ability to do that either.
In short, the story revolves around a family living in Tennessee that is en route to Florida. The central character that the story focuses on is the grandmother, who is displeased with where they are going on vacation. The family stops for lunch at a diner where they hear about The Misfit, a criminal who is on the run. They leave the restaurant and drive off when the grandmother remembers an old plantation she had visited in her younger days and persuades the family to take a pit stop and visit the old house. Turning up a dirt road, the grandmother realizes that the plantation she is thinking of is in a completely different state, however before she has time to relay this to the family their car is overturned in a ditch. And whom do they run into but The Misfit…
What haunted my most about this story was the image of the grandmother at the end immediately after the Misfit shoots her. With the sparsest of setting details, the picture of two of The Misfit’s cronies “looking down at the grandmother, who half sat and half lay n a puddle of blood with her legs crossed under her like a child’s and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky,” is so vivid you’re unable to shake it. What I like most about this story is that there is so much going on beneath the surface of every word. This is piece is on the briefer side of short stories, but it contains so much more meat than many novels ten times its length. This is a story I love to come back to and hope others who read it feel the same way.
...less

Like this review? yes flag

comments (showing 0-0 of 0)

newest »

date

all Melia's books »